Those protocols would need Government sign-off.
Alliance livestock and shareholder services manager Danny Hailes said level three restrictions should allow throughput for sheep to rise to 90% of plant capacit and beef to 100%, helping to address the backlog of stock still to be killed, which has blown out to six weeks.
Companies will have to reconfigure plants and Hailes says Alliance plans to do that for its sheep processing chains on Sunday and Monday.
At level three the social distancing between workers drops from 2m to 1m. Initially The level four rules forced sheep capacity to drop to 50% and beef to 70%.
Companies have since made incremental efficiency gains but throughput remains well short of capacity.
“This will be a huge and significant help to clear the backlog,” Hailes said.
The season could still run a month longer than usual.
Feed is becoming an acute issue in drought areas of the North Island and in Southland where farmers have never really been ahead of feed demand since spring when grass growth was low and wet ground conditions delayed crop sowing.
AgriHQ senior analyst Mel Croad said the increased capacity will be welcomed by farmers but she warns international markets are weak which might mean product has to be stored.
Alliance planned to kill lambs at all its South Island plants on Saturday and cattle at plants in both islands on Anzac Day.
It also plans to move some South Island lambs and sheep to the North Island to release pressure on plant capacity.
An analysis by the Meat Industry Association and Beef + Lamb estimates 69% of lambs an 80% of mutton has been processed with the North Island mutton kill slightly ahead of the South Island.
It estimates 55% of the cull cow kill has been completed in the North Island and 41% in the South Island with the peak expected next month.
Cull cows represent 60% of the weekly national kill for each of the last three weeks, with throughput lifting 15% last week.
Hailes said Alliance has increased its target lamb weight range from 17kg to 23kg to 17kg to 25kg without any price penalty to acknowledge farmers have had to retain stock longer.
It has several initiatives to address throughput issues, including spending $4m modifying the venison chain at its Lorneville plant in Southland to process cull cows, expected to be completed in March or April next year.
Hailes says the supply chain is operating well, which means inventory levels and storage are within acceptable guidelines.
The state of global markets means it is a juggling act matching market demand with supply.
“Everything is slowing down because people are not out and about. Everything from documentation, logging product at ports and warehousing is slowing down and we’re seeing that elsewhere now.”
Croad said most meat markets are struggling but the closure of restaurants in key markets has hit prime beef especially hard.
The European beef market, though small for NZ beef, has dried up as restaurants close and customers stay home, while in Australia the price for prime beef cuts has collapsed to mince levels.
Commodity cuts are benefiting from United States fast food retailers staying open.
